


We All Get Dirty

by poisontaster



Series: Light 'Verse [14]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dysfunctional Family, Gen, Past Relationship(s), Sam and Kids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-01-01
Updated: 2008-01-01
Packaged: 2018-05-06 22:58:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5433995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poisontaster/pseuds/poisontaster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean & Lena are divorced...why can't that just be the end of it?</p>
            </blockquote>





	We All Get Dirty

**Author's Note:**

  * For [moonmelody](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=moonmelody).



> 3 months after "I'll Wait for You".

Dean's on a hunt, all the kids are fighting off a cold—one Sam thinks he might be coming down with too—and he's having to fend off the advances of Guadalupe Castillo, Marta's cousin, newly arrived from Mexico, when Lena arrives.

Sam's faced down ghosts, monsters and demons, but the sight of his brother's ex-wife standing on the stoop with a suitcase freezes him like a deer in headlights, even with Jake screaming in his ear like an air-raid siren.

"Oh, Jakie…how big you've gotten!" Lena reaches for the baby and that breaks Sam's paralysis, making him take a step back and twist, pulling Jake out of her way.

"Lena, what are you doing here?" Sam goes back to bouncing Jake lightly in the cradle of his arm. "Dean's not home."

Lena shakes her head indulgently. "Don't you think I know that? Hello, Sam." She sways forward on her high heels to peck Sam on the cheek. "I've come to help."

"I don't need your help…" Sam begins.

At the same time, he hears small but heavy footsteps on the stairs behind him and Miria's tired-sick-strident voice, "Uncle Sam, my tummy doesn't… _Mom!_ " Stumping turns to running and then Miria flings herself past Sam to wrap herself around Lena's legs. "Hi, Mom! Hi! Are you staying?" She looks at Sam, snarly haired and glitter-eyed. "Can Mom stay, Sam? I wanna show her my dollhouse."

Miria's tugging at Lena's hand. Lena offers Sam a thin but triumphant smile and slides past him into the house proper. Leaving her suitcase on the stoop. Sam stares at it for a long, incredulous moment, the pressure in his temples wound to bursting, then closes the door on it.

Sixty seconds later, cursing darkly under his breath, Sam snatches the door open, grabs Lena's suitcase and brings it inside.

***

"You can't stay here, Lena." Sam crushes half a baby aspirin with the bowl of a spoon and sprinkles it into Jake's formula. If he's lucky, Jake will drink half of the bottle. Across the kitchen, Kait flings her plastic plate to the floor in uncharacteristic pique.

"Don't be silly." Lena holds her arms out and makes kissy faces at Evan. "Come here, my little _zaichik_ , come here…" Evan looks at her wall-eyed and sidles sideways to hide behind Sam's leg. Lena makes a moue and sits back, tugging up her bra strap under the neckline of her blouse. "You're up to your neck and what do you know about taking care of children, Sam, really?"

 _About a million times more than you do,_ Sam thinks, grinding his teeth. But he just keeps shaking the bottle, reaching down to cup the back of Evan's head reassuringly. Evan hugs Sam's leg tightly, looking up at Sam with huge eyes.

Finally, Lena makes a catlike mrowp in her throat. "I have nowhere else to go."

I don’t see how that's our problem." Sam goes over to Kait's high chair, dragging Evan on his leg, and stoops to pick up the plate, scooping up pureed pees and applesauce with his fingers. "Use the money Dean's paying you _every god…_ Every month. Get a motel room."

"Oh, please." Lena pulls a pack of cigarettes from her purse and taps one out into her fingers. "You know there's no money. Why else would I be _here_?" She makes a face.

"You are _not_ smoking in here." Sam lifts Kait out of the high chair, smearing her face more or less clean with the underside of her bib before setting her down on the floor. Evan immediately abandons Sam's leg in favor of his twin and the two of them toddle unsteadily off toward the living room with its bigger cache of toys. "I mean it."

Lena wrinkles her nose but she puts the cigarette back in the pack. Sam picks Jake out from the basket of dirty laundry on the kitchen table, and gives him the bottle. Jake stops crying out of sheer surprise, nearly going cross-eyed trying to look at the nipple in his mouth and Sam takes a deep breath as quasi-silence envelops the house.

"You know, you didn't used to be this mean to me." Lena hooks an arm around the back of her chair and crosses her legs, eyeing Sam speculatively.

"You used to be married to my brother." Sam goes to the kitchen doorway to check on Kait and Evan. Kait is flat on her back with a plastic block in either hand, swooping them around like spaceships with attendant sound effects. Evan is lying next to her, gripping his own block in one hand but mostly watching Kait and commenting in baby gibberish. "The operative words being 'used to'." Back to the counter to rip some paper towels off the roll; Sam drops them to the floor and uses his toe to wipe up the remaining spilled food. In a minute, he's going to have to figure out what Miria's up to. It's been fifteen minutes and he hasn't heard a peep. That's always a dangerous thing. "Don't you have a boyfriend you can shack up with or something?"

Lena sighs. It sounds eerily like Miria…or is that the other way around? "Samuel. If I had anyplace else to go, don't you think I would be there already? No. I came here. There is nowhere."

"Mom, look, I got a Hottiez doll for Christm…" Miria stops in the doorway, looking from Sam to Lena, her expression narrow and oddly adult. "Are you guys mad?"

Lena holds out her arms and Mira goes to her, climbing up into Lena's lap. "No, _yogodka_. Uncle Sam and I are just trying to figure out where I can stay until my new apartment is ready."

_Oh, no. Oh, **hell** no._

Miria looks at Sam. "Mom can stay in my room," she volunteers excitedly. "I'll share! I've got _two_ beds, Uncle Sammy."

Sam looks at Lena. "I'll pay for two nights in a motel and a hundred dollars in walking around money."

Lena's smile widens. "Done."


End file.
